


Mistletoe

by WakeUpDreaming



Series: Holiday Spirit: 2014 Holiday Collection [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, Fluff, I don't know how to tag this, Mistletoe, Pipabeth - Freeform, Smooches and goofy girlfriends, not quite smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2730983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakeUpDreaming/pseuds/WakeUpDreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piper's father's party wasn't supposed to be a big paparazzi party, and if she'd known that, she wouldn't have gone. Still, Annabeth in a formal dress and mistletoe everywhere? Doesn't suck as much as it could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistletoe

“I,” says Piper, “do not want to go to this Christmas party.”

“Too bad,” says Annabeth firmly, indelicately slipping her thumbs under her bra straps to adjust her dress. Piper lets her eyes linger on the way the shimmering blue fabric drapes under Annabeth’s collarbone, the way the thin straps slide down her shoulders.

“You’re staring again,” says Annabeth with a grin. “You going to stop that any time soon?”

“You look like an icicle,” Piper says, “like a really sexy icicle.”

Annabeth raises an eyebrow. “Did you just call me Elsa?”

Piper leans in. “Do you want to build a snowman?”

Annabeth rolls her eyes and leans against the seat of the limo, crossing her ankles. “You are freaking shameless.”

“Entirely your fault,” Piper replies. “You put on the dress I bought you.”

“Yeah,” says Annabeth, smile going sinful, “but you bought me the dress.”

Piper moves forward in the tiny space and crawls into Annabeth’s lap, hiking the short skirt of her red party dress a little up her hips as she leans forward, kissing Annabeth.

“You’re messing up the lipstick you made me wear,” Annabeth murmurs against Piper’s lips.

“I brought extra.”

Piper reaches up to push the straps off of Annabeth’s shoulders when the door opens.

The driver clears his throat. “Ms. McLean,” he says. “We have arrived.”

Piper basically leaps off of Annabeth’s lap. She only manages not to knock over the bottles of water by utilizing some of the battle strategies she has honed over the years.

“Yes, thank you, Claude,” she says, and she adjusts her dress. “One moment.”

“Of course, Ms. McLean.”

She smiles at him and he closes the door. That’s when the smile drops.

“Get your lips over here,” she demands, and she realizes how bizarre that sounded. “I don’t mean kissing lips. I mean lipstick. It’s ruined.”

Annabeth leans forward, looking lost, and Piper fixes both of their hair and makeup in a few seconds flat.

She knocks on the door.

Paparazzi. Everywhere.

“Gods hang it all,” Piper grumbles. “I thought this was going to be a behind the scenes, minimal contact with people who are half camera kind of thing.”

“Well Nico’s going to hate it,” Annabeth says, but Piper automatically feels a little better when Annabeth slides her hand in Piper’s.

“My face in the tabloids again,” says Piper. “Great.”

But then Annabeth’s got a little bit of a “look” on her face, that I-have-a-plan look, and Piper can’t really think about anything else due to being worried about that look.

By the time they get inside, Percy, Nico, Will, Jason, and Reyna are standing together, looking completely baffled.

Jason’s clinging to Percy’s hand like it’s a lifeline, but Percy doesn’t look much better.

“Jason and I came to say hi from the Roman camp,” says Reyna warily, “but at this point I’m wishing we had just sent an email.”

Piper sighs. “I’m really sorry, guys. You shouldn’t have had to deal with this.” She looks around, frustrated. “I’m thinking I don’t even want to be here, honestly. This was supposed to be just a quiet party for my dad’s,” she puts up air quotes, “autobiography release.”

“That requires formal dress?” Reyna asks. Piper does her best not to stare, but forgive her if she says the praetor looks banging in her eggplant purple halter gown.

Piper shrugs. “I’ve started assuming everything does,” she says, deadpan. “It’s stupid how many times the words, ‘you have to buy a new dress for this,’ comes up.”

“Hashtag rich girl problems?” Percy says.

Piper laughs. “Point taken. But I donate the ones I can’t wear anymore to consignment stores.” She sticks out her tongue. “So there.”

Percy looks like he’s about to respond, but then a camera flashes in his eyes and he winces. Jason wraps his arm around Percy’s shoulders protectively, something about flashing lights not sitting well with Percy ever since Tartarus. Piper’s never asked anyone why. They’ll tell her if they want to.

“I hate camera flashes,” Percy grumbles, blinking the blur away.

Will shrugs, the only one looking remotely comfortable. “I’ll short out their cameras.”

Piper’s jaw drops. “You can do that?”

Nico rolls his eyes, giving Will a look somewhere between besotted and frustrated. “No,” says Nico, “he can’t. He just likes people to think he has special powers.”

Will leans down and kisses his temple. “You," he says brightly, "can shut up now.”

"No, I can't," Nico replies, but he says it with a smile.

Piper’s about to make some comment about how they can leave if they want to, she will make do on her own, when Annabeth grabs her arm, pulls her about five feet and yells, “Whoops! Mistletoe!”

Before Piper can react, Annabeth’s pulling her in and kissing her. Piper gets a little carried away and settles her hands on Annabeth’s hips, the texture of the dress’ material rough under her fingers, and it relaxes her.

“Piper.”

Piper jumps away from Annabeth. “Dad!” she says, smoothing her dress and glancing over at Annabeth to make sure the dress still looks right. “Right, sorry, am I schmoozing?”

“If you wouldn’t mind?” Piper’s dad smiles apologetically. “You can bring Annabeth. Just be aware that the press might be…” He trails off, clearly searching for the words.”

“Might be assholes about it?” Piper suggests. “Believe me, Dad. I’m used to that. I’m very used to that.”

He smiles at her and kisses her on the forehead. “Thank you, sweetie.”

“Of course,” Piper sighs like it’s hard, but she really doesn’t mind. It’s fun to mess with the paparazzi who decide homophobia is a good route to ride, because that’s when Piper decides to be all dark Piper and use a little bit of charm speak – just a little, just enough to influence but not enough to control – to make them reconsider their ideas.

She’s not above manipulation when people are being assholes.

Her dad kisses her on the top of the head – a flash tells her a pap managed to get a photo of it – and directs her over to. Oh. It’s the group of paparazzi that he’s friends with, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

“Good evening, everyone,” Piper begins, but they interrupt her.

“Piper, is this your friend?”

“Piper, do you have a girlfriend?”

“What would you like to say to the people who claim this is a publicity stunt?”

Rapidly, Piper looks at Annabeth, looks at the ceiling, and spots mistletoe hanging from the door frame about five feet away. “If it were a publicity stunt, would I do this?” Piper asks, and pulls Annabeth over, dipping her and kissing her under the mistletoe. Piper won’t admit it to anyone else, but it’s not the easiest task to keep the two of them upright, and she’s crediting Annabeth with most of the effort in the situation. Piper’s strong, but her balance still isn’t the best.

They break apart, and Annabeth’s eyes are dilated, her skin flushed.

“Okay then,” she says, and Piper loves the way Annabeth gets a little flustered whenever Piper kisses her like that. Piper pulls her back up, Annabeth standing gracefully with years of agility training under her belt.

“What’s her name, Piper?” the paparazzi to the left, the one her dad has a particular deal with about being kind to Piper, stemming from the time Piper got hit in the knee with another pap’s tripod and this one, Piper thinks his name is Ian, took care of her until Tristan could get help. “Your lovely girlfriend, I mean.”

Piper turns to Annabeth and gestures for her to introduce herself.

“Um, hi,” Annabeth laughs, tucking a few curls behind her ear. “I’m Annabeth. Annabeth Chase.”

That’s when the questions slam again – where did they meet, how did they meet, when they knew it was love, all those questions. Piper does her best to answer, but she’s overwhelmed when they start asking really overwhelmingly ridiculous questions like, “How did you know you were gay?” Because she has stated multiple times she’s not gay, she’s bi, and for some reason that gets through exactly nobody’s thick skulls.

“I never realized I was gay,” Piper says slowly, feeling like she’s reading a script she wrote years ago, “I realized I was bisexual a year ago, but I’ve never realized I was gay.”

That’s when somebody starts shouting a word she really doesn’t like. And she turns to Annabeth, feeling the panic well over her. The last time she heard that word she was at the Wilderness School, and hearing that girl (Isabelle, was it?) calling her derogatory names for being Cherokee was one thing. This new word awoke something different in her: kind of half-disgust of herself that she hid for ages until she realized it wasn’t wrong at all.

“Don’t use that word around me if you ever want to set a foot in this town again,” Piper says darkly. “Now, I’m going to go kiss my girlfriend and if any one of you has a problem, you can -”

Annabeth’s eyes go wide, because shouting, “you can fuck right off” is definitely not the tone Piper’s dad was going for, but the words are about to pour out of her.

Instead, Annabeth kisses Piper firmly, and it floods a sort of concentrated rationality through Piper that keeps her silent. Piper kisses for a few more seconds, and she lies it’s to orient herself when it’s really because losing herself Annabeth is what dreams are fucking made of, then she pulls away.

“And there wasn’t even mistletoe that time,” Piper says, and she can’t keep the silly, besotted grin off of her face. “I blame this one,” she says, nodding toward Annabeth.

“I think that’s all you need from us tonight,” says Annabeth, and she takes Piper’s hand, gently guiding her away from the commotion.

But Annabeth doesn’t take them to their friends. Instead, they veer off into what Piper can only describe as a lounge. White, puffy couches with bright red pillows. For some reason all she can think of is what would happen if Mrs. O’Leary came to sit on the couches. Black fur everywhere, Piper guesses. 

“Sit down,” says Annabeth. “That was awful.”

Piper shrugs. “Wasn’t too bad.”

“Babe, they were grilling you about things they don’t need to know,” says Annabeth, smoothing her hands over Piper’s bare shoulders. Piper is certain this is either a calming mechanism or a seduction technique, but she can’t pinpoint which one.

Annabeth kisses behind her ear. “Look up.”

When Piper sees the mistletoe, she knows it’s the seduction technique.

“You put that there on purpose,” Piper murmurs as Annabeth’s lips make their way down her neck.

“No,” Annabeth says, her voice sending vibrations across Piper’s skin, “I put you here on purpose.”

“Same difference,” Piper says, her breath catching. Annabeth’s trailing her fingertips up Piper’s arms slowly, sending sparks of heat flooding through Piper’s body. “And how did you even know about this room?”

“I’m an architect, Pipes,” she murmurs, “I know everything about buildings.”

“Oh, and you knew there would be mistletoe,” says Piper. Her resolve to keep herself from turning around, from pulling Annabeth on top of her on the couch is beginning to break, but it’s more fun to make Annabeth wait a little bit than to take Annabeth’s face and kiss her breathless.

“Nah,” Annabeth says, turning Piper around until she’s flush against Annabeth, “that was just a lucky guess.”

She kisses Piper softly first, something gentle and innocent, like the kissed for the cameras, and it deepens as her hands gently settle on Piper’s lower back. Piper opens her mouth, a thrill flaming its way across her skin as Annabeth pulls her closer, the thin material of their dresses masking none of the heat.

“If you weren’t all done up I’d get you looking all wrecked on that sofa,” Annabeth murmurs against Piper’s lips.

Piper fights back half a whimper as she runs her lips down Annabeth’s throat, shamelessly using their height difference to bite a kiss into Annabeth’s collarbone. Annabeth’s the first to make a noise, a desperate yet small moan at the back of her throat, something small but threatening to grow, and Piper wants to hear more. She slides her hand up Annabeth’s body, and feeling Annabeth up is a formal gown is a fantasy Piper hadn’t even realized she’d had.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I told you we’d find them here.”

Piper has stopped caring, and because she knows it’s Jason and Percy who have found them, keeps kissing Annabeth.

“They won’t stop, Jason. This has happened before.”

“What if we just stand here? What if we just keep talking? Will they stop then?”

Annabeth and Piper simultaneously flip them the bird.


End file.
